Sky-rakers,

strictly speaking, is a sail above the fore-royal, the main-royal, or the mizzen-royal, more frequently called “sky-scrapers.” In general parlance any top-sail is so called.

“Dashed by the strange wind’s sport, we were sunk deep in the green sea’s trough; and before we could utter an ejaculatory prayer, were upheaved upon the crown of some fantastic surge, peering our sky-rakers into the azure vault of heaven.”—C. Thomson: Autobiography, p. 120.

· ·

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.